occupy wall street

The head of a column of protesters leaving Zuccotti Park and heading to the New York City Town Hall. The protesters were flanked by police officers. The protesters were chanting slogans like “We are the 99%” and “A people united will never be divided.” Photo by Diego Lynch

Zuccotti Park, in the heart of New York’s financial district, was a tumult with musical performers, performance art, die-ins and the rhythmic chanting of slogans yesterday. These congregants supplanted the usual foot traffic of professionals to rally for more affordable housing as part of the 4th Anniversary of Occupy Wall Street’s occupation of the park.

“I have a 22-year-old daughter who just finished college, who can’t get a job.” said Wensum Pendergrass, 56, of Flatbush, Brooklyn, and a hospital employee. He said his own rent has gone up.

Wensum Pendergrass, a hospital worker, driven to rally in Zuccotti Park by her desire for less expensive rent. She is a mother and her daughter lives with her. She is certain that if she loses her job she will become homeless. Photo by Diego Lynch

Pendergrass’ experience is in line with city trends. According to a 2015 Pew Research Poll, only 67% of people aged 18-34 live independently and, according to Streeteasy, the typical new renter will spend 60% of their income on their rent.

“A studio is $900, come on. A one bedroom is $1500, a two bedroom is $3000, I am not talking about Manhattan, I am talking about right down there in Brooklyn,” said Pendergrass. “We the people in Brooklyn, the working class people, who are working in all the nursing homes, who are working in the hospitals, who are working in the restaurants, we can not make it.”

But the impact of high housing prices on their lives wasn’t the only thing drawing people to the park.

Chuck Helms, a member of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He was covered in pro-union ephemera, including the flag, buttons, and embroidery on his clothing. He had been attending Occupy Wall Street since September of 2011, and now comes to Zuccotti Park every Friday. Photo by Diego Lynch

“I am a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers,” said Chuck Helms, 68 who protests at the park every Friday. “I come here from New Jersey and I know the importance of this to the children of America, the importance of the occupy movement. “My father’s generation handed down unionism to my generation, on a silver platter, we stole the platter, and we never taught our children that need for unionism.”

Zuccotti Park was the epicenter for Occupy Wall Street, a protest movement which sprung from the outrage associated with the Financial Crisis.

Occupy Wall Street’s influence was apparent in the park on the movement’s 4th anniversary. The chants that flowed over the park, “We are the 99%, and so are you,” and “The people united, will never be divided,” were mainstays of the Occupy Wall Street movement.

The reasons for being there were not constrained to changing government policy.

“Everybody should go to protests,” said Josh Hollingshed, 24, a philosophy student at The New School. “They are an important part of self development, of affirming beliefs.”

But he was careful to explain that attending was a political act.

“There is a better meaning for the term politics than electoral politics,” said Hollingshed. “People put a lot of energy into who is going to be president, when they would be a lot better putting that energy into their communities.”

But all of the protests, and the subsequent march to City Hall, were interspersed with shouted demands for lower rent.

“For the homeless people, I think the government can find a way to make the shelters more accessible, “ said Pendergrass. “If you don’t get to shelters by a certain time they have to sleep outside. “If I lose my job I will be homeless.”

Jessica Mellow, 27, and Keenen Thompson, 22, have waited in line since last Thursday for the new iPhone 5. Photo by Alex Jung.

For the brave, passionate, and possibly foolhardy, waiting in line for the new Apple iPhone 5, which goes on sale today at 8 A.M. is a testament to their dedication. But for most, it has become a PR opportunity.

As various media outlets descended upon the Apple store on Fifth Avenue, secondary companies that sell apps or cases for the iPhone, have staked out spots towards the front, either by sponsoring eager Apple fans or sending out their employees.

“It’s a great time to have free publicity,” said Grim Dominguez, 30, from Corona, Queens and co-founder of a banking app for the iPhone called Refundo. He wore a black hoodie with “got refundo?” printed in white lettering across the chest.

“We only run on the iPhone, so it’s a very important step for us to get our hands on it and update our app,” he said. “We all use Apple personally, but it helps us with the business.”

Employees for OtterBox, a company specializing in protective plastic cases for various Apple products, including the iPhone, flew in from around the country to hand out “survival kits”—bright, yellow backpacks emblazoned with the company’s name and equipped with a beanie, blanket, poncho, and portable charging kit—to the first 100 customers waiting in line.

“We’ve done this since the 3G,” said Corey Manicone, 24, an OtterBox employee from the Upper East Side. “This was the first year we got a permit.”

OtterBox set up a tent advertising their product across the street from the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue, while also commandeering five lounge chairs in line.

“We have spots in line, but we’re just here to be part of the process,” said Nicole Niss, 23, a field marketing representative for OtterBox from Boston, Mass. “We’re not buying iPhones.”

Other intrepid individuals saw an opportunity to get a free iPhone while having some fun at the same time.

Jessica Mellow, 27, from Harlem, and Keenen Thompson, 22 from Jackson Heights, Queens, who arrived last Thursday at 7 P.M., have a sponsorship with Gazelle, an electronics company that buys used electronics and resells them, which will purchase their iPhone for them.

As she sat in an orange Gazelle lounge chair, Mellow blogged about their experiences on iphonewhatever.com, a blog she started when she waited 18 days for the iPhone 4S.

“We made it a whole social experiment,” she said.

Waiting in line 24 hours a day means forming a bond with those around you, saving spots for those who needed to take a shower or use the bathroom. In order to survive the inclement weather, they teamed up, waiting in cars parked on the street to sit out the torrents.

“I look at it like an urban camping trip,” said Mellow, wearing a puffy, black jacket to keep her warm. “If you need to do something, other people have your back.”

“Americans have found a new way to gather and to celebrate to wait for things,” said an app developer, who went by the moniker, “Sage Catharsis,” 31 and homeless. “What it turns into is a camp experience.”

The mass of bodies, folding chairs, and sleeping bags have attracted curious tourists with their cameras already on their way to the flagship store.

Seizing upon the event as a chance to educate consumers, protestors from Occupy Wall Street, who doubled the line when they arrived en masse last night at 8 P.M. with cardboard signs, decried Apple’s relationship with Foxconn, whose labor practices have come under scrutiny.

“We have come here to educate other people about the working conditions,” said Emilio Baez, 18, from Chicago, IL, referring to the recent spate of suicides by Chinese factory workers at Foxconn.

In general though, the atmosphere is charged with excitement for the release of another Apple product.

“We’re here to help make it fun,” said Niss. “No one’s out here who isn’t excited.”

Protestors held a “spokescouncil” in Battery Park to discuss their part in the Occupy protest. Photo by Daniella Silva

One year after the Occupy Wall Street movement first converged in Zuccotti Park, hundreds of protestors flooded the financial district yesterday in an attempt to surround the New York Stock Exchange. Hundreds of police officers also lined the district: some on foot, some on horseback, and others on motorcycles. By late afternoon, over 150 people were reported arrested, according to the National Lawyers Guild of New York City.

Protestors waved banners, played music, and danced in the street. Others wore party hats and yelled, “Happy Birthday!” Demonstrators blocked several intersections before being scattered by law enforcement. Many spoke out against an unjust economic system and rallied against the same grievances the movement called attention to last fall.

“People can’t move on,” said Chloe Cockburn, 33 a civil rights lawyer from Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “So many people have someone in their family facing a debt crisis, or a foreclosure, or an immigration crisis.”

“Conditions have gotten worse, they haven’t gotten better,” said Anthony Zenkus, 47, from Greenlawn, Long Island. “There’s still a disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street. It’s not a sustainable system.”

During the protests, Zenkus broke off into a chant, “Warning! If you’re not paying your fair share of taxes, the police will be making arrests today! Please stay safe.”

The protest was divided into affinity groups, small groups of people within the movement who share a common tactic, identity, skill or politics, according to the Occupy Wall Street web site. Each group united at specific locations throughout the financial district at 7 a.m. before making their way through towards the Stock Exchange. A map on the site shows the district divided into four blocs: the 99% Zone, the Education Zone, the Eco Zone, and the Debt Zone. Organizers for the movement had been planning the event for months, said Zenkus.

Despite the turnout, Zenkus said he lamented people’s limited ability to show their support.

“For every one of my friends that’s here, I know a lot of people—good people—who sympathize but couldn’t come out today,” he said.

“It’s a good turnout this year,” said T.J. Frawls, 33, founder of the Political and Electoral Working Group at OWS. “I was here on this day last year and it’s just as many people—maybe more.”

“I carried this same sign,” he added. The sign, now a crumpled piece of cardboard read, “SMASH THE TWO-PARTY SYSTEM.”
Frustration with the current electoral system resounded throughout the protest. Within a movement largely touted as being liberal, most expressed a largely nonpartisan political resentment.

“The two-party system constrains voter choice and creates the fiction that these two corporate-sponsored parties actually represent the existing spectrum of political interests and beliefs in this country,” said Frawls. “And they don’t. They only represent a narrow set of interests.”

“To me the election is a distraction,” said Zenkus. “We’re still here. People are still enraged.”

Some protestors wore masks bearing the faces of President Obama and presidential candidate Mitt Romney. In one group, the two were chained at the neck by another protestor dressed as Rich Uncle Pennybags, the mascot of the game monopoly.

“Frankly I don’t think it’s a left-right issue,” said protestor Douglas Ficek, 35, of Astoria, Queens. “The idea is that more and more we are moving away from a democracy to a plutocracy—rule by the rich.”

Ficek added that he would still vote for President Obama in November.

“It’s ok to vote for the lessor of two evils, I think,” he said.

The Occupiers reconvened for a meeting at Battery Park at 11:30 a.m. The early morning tension momentarily subsided as protestors sat in a large circle in the grass while police stood quietly by. At the gathering, called a spokescouncil, representatives from each of the affinity groups gave an account of the day’s successes, failures, and concerns. Some planned to stage further protests throughout the afternoon.

Hundreds of police officers gathered in the financial district in response to Occupy Wall Street’s one-year anniversary. Photo by Daniella Silva

“There’s so many stories in the media saying ‘Occupy is dead this, Occupy is dead that’ and don’t get me wrong I get that because it definitely disappeared from public view, but there are a lot of local Occupy events happening,” said Ficek during the spokescouncil. He admitted that it was discouraging when large movements don’t come to political fruition. Years earlier, Ficek took part in the massive protests against the Iraq war.

Cockburn was torn between the ideals of the movement and some of its tactics.

“If success is stopping people from going to work—I don’t think that’s a good goal personally,“ she said, shrugging. “It is successful to the extent that there are many people out sharing a common message.” She added that police presence had a huge impact on the number of protestors.

Tommy Montalvo, a Puerto Rican cab driver from the Bronx, said much larger demonstrations were needed.

“We’ve seen other places, like Egypt, where it has happened,” he said. “Most of us can’t even visualize that happening here—not an overthrow of our government—but a complete economic change that favors the poor and middle class.
“We’re trending towards less activism, and even lower numbers. What is this going to accomplish?”

Retired Episcopal Bishop George Packard, one of the many religious figures who represent a national multi-faith coalition of religious leaders known as Occupy Faith, assembled a large crowd of protestors at Zuccotti Park this morning before police arrested him nearly 30 minutes later at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street.

“Part of the Christian message is that God is with the poor,” said Reverend Jeff Mansfield from the First Congregational Church Somerville UCC near Cambridge, Mass. “Usury is wrong.”

Mansfield not only attended the Occupy Wall Street events earlier today, but also showed support to Jewish occupy supporters by attending the Occupy Judaism event at Zuccotti Park last night. Members of the Jewish faith simultaneously celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, as well as the first birthday of the Occupy movement.

“It was a really positive experience,” said Mansfield. “There’s a variety of people of faith in the movement: Christians, Jews, Muslims.”

Eric Jackson, a minister at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village and associate minister at First Calvary Baptist Church in Brooklyn, is also a member of Occupy Faith and said that the organization has a good Jewish representation.

“The faith community stands in opposition of global capitalism,” said Jackson. “It is a spiritual issue.”

Other religious figures not associated with Occupy Faith also attended the protests this morning, including Stephanie Shockley, an Episcopalian Chaplin at St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center in Manhattan.

Shockley, who has been involved with Occupy Wall Street since October of last year, said that she’s noticed her appearance in religious attire has an effect on the temperament of law enforcement and demonstrators alike.

“Cops are reluctant to mess with me,” said Shockley. “I think I can remind cops that there is something higher to report to than their commanding officers.”

She said she notices initial suspicion among some occupiers, but has also experienced appreciation from some, including those who aren’t religious.

“For example, I know someone who is a definite atheist who will pick up the phone sometimes and say, ‘We could use some spiritual support,’” she said.

Lisa Fithian, 51, an Occupy Wall Street member from Austin, Texas, expressed approval of religious support in the Occupy movement.

“Occupy Faith is a critical part,” she said. “They provide a moral voice. People need to see that presence in the Occupy movement.”

Bob Lindgren, a 58-year-old protester from Bayridge, Brooklyn said he is indifferent to the presence of religious figures in the movement.

“I don’t particularly feel the laws they are preaching,” said Lindgren. “I wish more of them would [show support] even though I don’t think too much of them will get involved.”

Minister Eric Jackson recognized that some within the church are still reluctant to join in Occupy Wall Street for “fear that they might run into opposition with their congregation.”

Lindgren, while openly nonreligious, said that he heard about Bishop Gregory Packard’s arrest earlier in the day. His response: “I think it’s wonderful.”

Rachel Smith was arrested last October protesting on Brooklyn Bridge. She's back this year, and still not afraid to fight against capitalism. Photo by Jordyn Taylor

Rachel Smith was arrested last October during an Occupy Wall Street protest on the Brooklyn Bridge. She spent 12 hours in jail. A year later she’s back, and ready to risk it all again.

Smith, 27, a student at the CUNY Graduate Center, got involved with the Occupy Wall Street movement last fall because she wanted to take a stand against capitalism. “Money for schools, not for banks,” read the cardboard sign she held on this morning. Rather than deterring her, the arrest made Smith even more determined to fight for her anti-capitalist cause.

“I was arrested, and I’ve been participating [in OWS] ever since,” she said.

A year after the arrest, Smith was still angered and driven by the unjust treatment she said she received from the New York Police Department on the bridge that day.

“The cops basically let us onto the bridge and then corralled us in on both sides and arrested everybody,” she said. “There was no point at which anybody told us we shouldn’t be where we were. I didn’t understand why I was being arrested at first, and they wouldn’t tell me. They just said I was acting disorderly. So it was just a bunch of bullshit.”

Smith was arrested in the afternoon, and spent the night in jail. While behind bars, Smith bonded with the other arrested protesters.

“They arrested like 800 of us,” she said. “They separated us by gender, so I was just there with women. We were in two to three person cells, and they kept bringing in more and more roomfuls of women. We sang, we talked. They were probably the best conditions under which one could be in jail. Cops suck, but the people I was with were excellent.”

Smith believed that the police purposely let her and the other protesters onto the Brooklyn Bridge last year because they wanted to make arrests. Along with her anti-capitalist goals, Smith was now looking to see changes in the NYPD.

“The Citizens’ Review Board is not functional, number one, “ she said. “Number two, I think there are some tactics that they use that are obviously unjust and wrong.”

Smith listed “stop and frisk,” “snatch and grab,” and “pen and arrest” as the NYPD tactics she most wanted to see eliminated.

“I don’t know how many of these things are institutional, that would be easy to change through policy, and how much of them are just embedded in the culture of the NYPD,” she said.

The danger of arrest might have been present again this morning, but Smith made it clear she was in the OWS movement for the long haul.

“Revolutions don’t happen overnight,” she said. “A lot of people have sort of gotten bored with OWS, and I think that’s really disappointing, because movements take a long time. “

Ahead of the November presidential elections, protestors gathered for a day of action Monday morning in Manhattan’s Financial District in an attempt to re-energize a movement that has flagged since the spring and voice their discontent with an Obama administration that has done little to deliver on the promise of his 2008 campaign.

“From a conservative point of view, people lump liberals, Democrats, Occupy, and Obama,” said Sally Jane Kerschen-Sheppard, 34, from Inwood. “Occupiers would not lump themselves into those categories.”

“Occupy is just as disenchanted with Obama as they are with the Republican Party,” she said.

Many protestors admitted part of the reason why they joined the Occupy movement was because they were beginning to feel disillusioned after four years of the Obama administration.

“I was an Obama supporter,” said Dan Shockley, 37, from East Harlem as he moved a massive cloth boulder filled with a paper, a symbol of the debt that saddles people.

“I’m very unhappy with him, especially on issues of privacy, civil rights, and military detentions,” he said. “He’s taken everything from the Bush era and continued it.”

For many protestors, they perceive little difference between President Obama and his Republican challenger, former Mass. Governor, Mitt Romney.

“Choosing between Obama and Romney is like choosing between Coke and Pepsi,” said Susan Rubin, 52, a mother of three who came down from Chappaqua, New York. “I want to choose water.”

Many Occupy protestors are also looking to voice their discontent at the ballot box.

“We thought things were really going to change,” said Theresa Lee, 53, from Washington Heights. “We thought there was going to be equity of wealth—not this disparity.”

“I’m voting for a third party candidate, the Green Party, probably,” she said. “Somebody has to move the Democratic Party. Someone has to pull [Obama] to the left, otherwise, this is what we’re stuck with.”

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein speaks to reporters in front of the National Museum of the American Indian at Occupy Wall Street. Photo by Alex Jung.

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein spoke in front of the National Museum of the American Indian on the south side of Bowling Green.

“My campaign and the Green party and other small progressive parties represent real independent-people-powered politics,” Stein said. “My campaign is the only voice for that people-powered politics in the presidential election.”

Many see Stein’s presidential run as an important mechanism for keeping certain issues like poverty, predatory lending practices, and soaring student debt in the national conversation.

“There’s more than one way of winning an election,” said Dr. Stein. “We can also win an election by winning the day—driving these issues forward, getting into the debate, changing the debate, and really challenging power.”

Others though, are still worried about what a vote for Stein or another third party candidate would do for the fortunes of Romney.

“Every time I think about voting for a third party, I have that Nader flashback from 2000,” said Kerschen-Sheppard.

“I’m not thrilled with Obama, but my hands are tied,” said Danielle Abrams, 44, an adjunct professor at CUNY from Kensington, Brooklyn.

“At this point, it’s the only way out,” she said. “A vote for a third party candidate is a vote for Romney.”

CODEPINK members perform their signature action of throwing pink bras into the air at Bowling Green. by Alyana Alfaro

This morning the people’s mic—the Occupy movement’s way of broadcasting messages to crowds without equipment—could be heard echoing through the Vietnam Veterans Plaza as small groups of Occupy Wall Street protesters, called affinity groups, came together at the hub of the movement’s “Debt Zone.”

A mere three blocks away from the New York Stock exchange, protesters like Amanda Lodoza, dressed from head-to-toe in pink complete with a fluorescent-colored bra affixed to her backpack, were able to meet with like-minded occupiers as they prepared for today’s planned march on Wall Street.

For Lodoza, who came from Houston, Texas to participate in the movement’s one-year anniversary, it was an opportunity to meet activists from all over the country.

“I’m here at Occupy because I believe this is the most inclusive pro-human rights group around,” she said. “It is a community building movement that I have not seen anywhere else.”

Amanda Lodoza of Houston, Texas traveled to New York to march with an women's group. by Alyana Alfaro

Lodoza came to Wall Street to march with CODEPINK, a women-only activist group that engages in protest against issues like the Iraq War and the use of drones in military strategy.

Jodie Evans came from Venice Beach, Calif. to participate in the today’s march and is one of the co-founders of CODEPINK. She said that the organization, whose slogan is “women for peace,” directly took its name from military terminology.

“We were started at the beginning of the push for the Iraq war because Bush was frightening people with ‘Code Red’ and ‘Code Yellow’ so we called ‘Code Pink’ for peace,” she said.

In general, Occupy Wall Street is not directly related to military conflict the movement still works with the organization’s mission Evans said.

“What is happening today is very much a part of our work,” she said. “It is a war on the people of America from the workers of Wall Street. It is not fair to the people of the country the way Wall Street it behaving. The full on rape and rabid greed that is undermining the very fabric of our society is unfair and that’s the point.”

Some activists like Lodoza feel they have been directly impacted by this “war.”

On Sunday Lodoza was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct when CODEPINK performed an action in front of a Bank in America to protest the bank’s financial support of fracking or the extraction of natural resources from within the earth’s rock.

“The fracking is part of the war machine, it is part of the suppression of the people,” Lodoza said.

Lodoza was arrested while performing CODEPINK’s signature action of throwing pink bras into the air.

“We were to pause for a moment in front of Bank of America and disperse bras—we called it bust up Bank of America,” she said. “Foolishly, I turned my back to the police, raised my pink bra above my head and I got grabbed by the elbow and dragged off the street.”

Lodoza said that she was only arrested because she was “easily accessible.”

“Arresting officers were extremely sympathetic,” she said. “They verbally expressed to us how upset they were with the ‘white shirts’ who just yank people out of the crowd and hand them over to a blue shirt so they have to spend hours doing paperwork.”

Both Evans and Lodoza agreed, that Occupy Wall Street brought women’s issues back into the pubic eye and gave feminists a way to reorganize.

“I like the idea of being in an affinity group with other women,” Lodoza said “In mixed groups, women’s rights are often silenced even among feminist men. The emotional support you get from the women for me, as a woman, is just a little bit better.”

While Lodoza began her march this morning at the “strike debt” hub she said she had no particular connection to the debt issue.

Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protestors marched to the New York Stock Exchange early this morning only to find the building already occupied, this time by hundreds of police officers that barricaded the entire perimeter.

What was intended to be an act of civil disobedience turned into a cat-and-mouse chase with police, who prevented protestors from being able to occupy anything.

Divided into four zones within the Financial District–Education, Debt, Eco, and 99 percent–the goal of the protests was to form a “People’s Wall” surrounding the Stock Exchange before assembling at specific banks and financial institutions on Wall Street. But walls of police prevented the protestors from forming any kind of takeover.

Yet protestors like Robert Cammiso were not deterred. Cammiso, 49, of Prospect Park, Brooklyn, was one of approximately 25 protestors who convened at South Street Seaport early in the morning to protest tuition hikes and the increasing costs of a college education.

Robert Cammiso of Park Slope, Brooklyn, at the South Street Seaport Sept. 17 shortly before marching onto Wall Street. Cammiso, 49, went back to school after being laid off from his construction job in 2009. Photo by Timothy Weisberg.

“Unfortunately, it will get worse as the day goes on,” he said of the police presence.

Cammiso, who spent 17 days at Zuccoti Park, the root of the Occupy movement that began last September, was laid off from his construction management job in 2009, a position he held for nearly 30 years. Unable to find work, he went back to school and enrolled at Brooklyn College, where he became involved with OWS through the Brooklyn College Student Union.

Cammiso was also one of 700 protestors arrested last October during an attempted sit-in on the Brooklyn Bridge. But the strategies have changed since then, and protestors are no longer staging any sit-ins.

A sign placed on a police van by Occupy Wall Street protestors. Protestors attempted to form a people's wall around Wall Street, but were greeted by NYPD barricading the New York Stock Exchange. Photo by Timothy Weisberg.

“The tactics have changed from last year,” said Cammiso. “We no longer stand behind barricades, but we keep moving, and this prevents the police from massing in any one area and just creating a wall for us, which is what they are very good at.”
Still, more than 100 arrests were made by 11:30 a.m., according to the New York Times.

Monday marked the one-year anniversary of OWS that began in Lower Manhattan’s Zuccotti Park last September. The movement called for ends to social and economic inequality and raised concerns about debt, a stagnant economy, and the rising costs of education.

Despite different affinity groups and a vast variety of individual agendas, the protestors still remain united, said Amin Husain, an affinity group leader and Brooklyn native who helped organize the actions on Wall Street.

“There’s a consensus that debt is the threat that binds the 99 percent,” he said.

Cammiso echoed the same sentiment.

“Everything is interwoven, and in order to get people to understand them, you really have to pull them apart,” he said. “It’s not an equitable situation, and this march is about equity. There’s a class inequity and it’s been class war from the top down and we’re pushing back.”

Unfazed by the inability to take over specific targets, Cammiso and others regrouped and continued to march and protest in small groups. One group called themselves the “Balloon Brigade,” handing out balloons to protestors as an act of solidarity.
One year later and no longer holding Zuccotti Park as their own public forum, many protestors like Cammiso believe the causes and actions taken are worth fighting for.

“They thought we stopped, but one year later, we are still here,” he said.

But at just 6:30 AM, the birthplace of the Occupy Movement had more police than protesters and Steyert’s call was met with little response. Still, Steyert was excited.

“It feels like a birthday,” he said. “September 17 will always be a day in history. I’m here to show that the movement still has fire in it.”

Steyert, a Queens native and Vietnam veteran, said he was apart of every major movement of OWS, from the Brooklyn Bridge incident— which ended with 700 arrests— to May Day and finally, today, his “Occu-versary”. Steyert was wearing a “Veterans for Peace” shirt, a “Vietnam Vet” hat, and waving a dirty, yellow Gadsen flag that read “Don’t Tread On Me”. The senior citizen called it his battle flag.

“I added these words in permanent marker,” he explained, proudly holding out the flag. “So now it says ‘The 99% says Don’t Tread On Me’. This is a message for all Americans.”

But by 7:09 AM, Steyert’s battle flag lay abandoned in the middle of Broadway. The 69-year-old veteran had been arrested for blocking traffic. Steyert continued to chant “Occupy Wall Street!” as he was led away. His arrest was the first of more than 100 OWS arrests.

Six minutes later around 200 people had gathered near Zuccotti Park. The diverse crowd was abuzz with energy. The vibe was celebratory. Bands played as confetti was released in the air and protesters in elaborate costumes marched with props. But the older members of OWS were focused on the mission, not the frills.

Most brought up the rear end of the crowd. Others could be spotted in the rowdy mass here and there, walking in groups of two or three with their Army green “Veterans for Peace” shirts.

Last year, a profile of OWS said the average Occupier was 33. But the baby boomers of the movement, those 60+, are present and are making a statement.

“This is the worst I’ve seen the country in my entire life,” said Bob Nash, 69, of Long Island and a disabled Marine veteran. “Thirty percent of the homeless in the United States are veterans, that’s a disgrace.”

Steyert said he is a seasoned protester. After leaving the Navy, he began protesting the Vietnam War in 1968. He said OWS is reminiscent of the Anti-War movement.

“I never thought since the Vietnam War that I’d see that kind of enthusiasm and citizen action again,” said Steyert, “We’re all pissed and it’s a beautiful day to get arrested.”